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  Graphics image generation and data analysisUSPTO Application #: 20070185904Title: Graphics image generation and data analysis Abstract: Provides graphics display apparatus, systems and methods for effectively presenting information obtained by data mining, and to improve the visibility of the display of individual data elements and attributes of data included in a particular category while allowing an overview of whole large-scale hierarchical data to be provided. An example embodiment includes an aggregation unit for performing aggregation of attributes of nodes in the hierarchical data according to given aggregation criteria; a filtering unit for filtering the result of aggregation performed by the aggregation unit according to given filtering criteria to select nodes to be displayed from the hierarchical data; and a visualization unit for generating a graphics image that includes the nodes to be displayed selected by the filtering unit and reflects the hierarchical structure of the hierarchical data. (end of abstract) Agent: Ibm Corporation, T.j. Watson Research Center - Yorktown Heights, NY, US Inventors: Hirofumi Matsuzawa, Tohru Nagano, Takayuki Itoh, Yumi Yamaguchi USPTO Applicaton #: 20070185904 - Class: 707104100 (USPTO) Related Patent Categories: Data Processing: Database And File Management Or Data Structures, Database Schema Or Data Structure, Application Of Database Or Data Structure (e.g., Distributed, Multimedia, Image) The Patent Description & Claims data below is from USPTO Patent Application 20070185904. Brief Patent Description - Full Patent Description - Patent Application Claims
FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0001] The present invention relates to a graphics display technique for generating a graphics image of hierarchical data. BACKGROUND ART [0002] With the widespread use of computer-based database system, various approaches to data mining systems for extracting desired information from vast amounts of data have been proposed. [0003] The following documents are considered: [0004] [Non-Patent Document 1] [0005] Hirofumi Matsuzawa, Toru Nagano, Akiko Murakami, Hironobu Takeuchi, Koichi Takeda, and Yasushi Kanda, "MedTAKMI: A text mining system for databases of bio-medical document," Workshop on data mining, Japan Society for Software Science and Technology, September 2000 [0006] [Non-Patent Document 2] [0007] Hao M. C., Hsu M., DayalU., and Krug A., "Web-based Visualization of Large Hierarchical Graphs Using Invisible Links in a Hyperbolic Space," HP Laboratories Palo Alto, HPL-2000-2 [0008] [Non-Patent Document 3] [0009] Ben Shneiderman, "Treemaps for space-constrained visualization of hierarchies," May 21, 2003 (retrieved on Jun. 19, 2003), <URL: http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/treemap-history/index.shtml> [0010] [Non-Patent Document 4] [0011] Ito, Kajinaga, and Ikehata, "Data jewel-box: a graphics showcase for large-scale hierarchical data visualization," Special Interest Group on Graphics and CAD, Information Processing Society of Japan, 2001-CG-104, 2001 [0012] [Non-Patent Document 5] [0013] Yamaguchi and Ito, "Data jewel-box II: a graphics showcase for large-scale hierarchical data visualization using positional information template," Special Interest Group on Graphics and CAD, Information Processing Society of Japan, 2002-CG-108, 2002 [0014] For example, some text mining systems for document files such as research paper files have the capability of finding insights contained in a large number of documents by using category information, words, and modification relations between words in the documents (see non-patent document 1, for example). [0015] For example, the United States National Library of Medicine stores 11,000,000 biomedical research papers (as of September 2002). The library defines a category system called MeSHTerm and a label is assigned to each paper to indicate which category the paper belongs to. The labels can be used for searches. More than one category is assigned to one document. This category system has a huge hierarchical structure including as many as 38,000 nodes in total (as of September 2002). [0016] A text mining system called IBM TAKMI for biomedical documents (abbreviated to MedTAKMI system) described in non-patent document 1 provides an analysis function for such hierarchical structures. In this system, by specifying one node (category) in a tree-structured category system, all the documents in the category system, including documents in all descendant node categories of that node can be aggregated and analyzed. [0017] Various other technologies have been proposed that display such a data constellation (hereinafter referred to as hierarchical data) in graphical form in which a number of data elements are organized into a hierarchical structure (see non-patent documents 2 to 5, for example). [0018] A prior-art approach using a Hyperbolic Tree method disclosed in non-patent document 2 arranges a tree structure in a hyperbolic space to represent both a hierarchical structure of data and a link structure among date elements. [0019] Another prior-art approach using Treemap method disclosed in non-patent document 3 splits a screen space on which hierarchical data is to be displayed into regions in alternating horizontal and vertical directions and associates each of the regions with each data element, thereby representing a hierarchical structure of the data. [0020] In prior-art graphics display technologies disclosed in non-patent documents 4 and 5, icons of data at the lowest level are enclosed in a graphic such as a rectangle, then a graphic enclosing a cluster of such graphics is created to represent a higher level, another graphic enclosing the graphics at the higher level is created, and this process is repeated until the highest level is reached to arrange data in the screen space. [0021] As described above, data mining systems have the capability of analyzing vast amounts of data to obtain insights contained in the data. However, if the size of a database analyzed is large, a difficulty arises in how information obtained should be presented to a user. [0022] For example, most researchers (analysts) who analyze the research paper database in the United States National Library of Medicine by performing text mining by means of the text mining system IBM TAKMI for biomedical documents described know categories to research because the category system defined by the library is in the public domain. Most analysts analyze only the categories familiar to them because it is difficult for them to search the database to find nodes that contain insights of interest from among as many as 40,000 nodes or to investigate all nodes by following related nodes. [0023] From the viewpoint of data mining, however, it is desirable that, if any other categories include noteworthy insights, the insights should be presented to researchers. For example, if an analyst searches first a category familiar to him or her for information that relates to a number of categories, he or she may not notice the other categories that relates to the information. To avoid this, it is desirable to provide a function that indicates to a user with which node in a category system of a database the user should start analysis and provides the user with an overview of the whole category system of the database. [0024] The graphics display technologies described above can provide an at-a-glance output in which a user can see data elements of a hierarchical structure. However, the output is not always easy to look at if it displays all of thousands of tens of thousands data elements directly. [0025] The prior art disclosed in non-patent document 2 that uses the Hyperbolic Tree method locates lowest-level data elements at the edge of a radial tree structure. Therefore, it is difficult to display thousands or tens of thousands data elements. [0026] The prior art disclosed in non-patent document 3 that uses the Treemap method provides a graphics display method suitable for relatively large scale hierarchical data. However, when thousands or tens of thousands data elements were displayed, a unit display area mapped to each data element would be so small that the visibility decreases. [0027] The prior art disclosed in non-patent documents 4 and 5 provides the capability of displaying a bar graph representing the attributes of data on a graphic associated with each data element. With this capability, when a piece of information that relates to a number of categories is used as search criteria, bars associated with particular data elements in the categories project from the graphics around that information. Thus, the relation between the information used as the search criteria and the data elements can readily be known. However, if bars are displayed for thousands or tens of thousands data elements, the image is crowded with the bars, degrading the visibility. Continue reading... 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